WIP Wednesday

Time for another WIP Wednesday post. Once again I will link this up with Lee from Freshly Pieced.

February was a hard month. It was bone chilling cold for so much of the month that, while I didn't actually count, it at least seemed that the children had Green Dot Days about two-thirds of the time if not more. On top of that, there were three short school weeks in a row. First there was a PD Day, then there was the Family Day holiday and then there was Teacher's Convention. Of course with it so cold, the lovelies were stuck inside even during their days off, getting cabin fever, squawking with and at each other, running circles and generally driving everyone nuts. With all that, I didn't get nearly as much quilting done as I would have liked.

On the flip side, we did manage a few fun activities so it wasn't a total loss. Now it's March, the kids have full school weeks until Spring Break at the end of the month and the temperatures suddenly jumped above zero. In about three days we went from -25 to +6 and we are loving it even if it does make for quite the mess as a lot of snow starts to melt.

For my first WIP, I am posting my Storm at Sea quilt. I finally got the borders on it having decided to go with a small border of the same red as the heart and then a larger border of a blue with random white dots. Still not sure about the blue but it is on there and done so I am going with it. I worried that piano keys would just be too busy with the interior. I have a complimentary red for the binding that I am happy with since I had about three inches of the original red after the border was done. I had measured so I knew that I didn't have enough of it to bind with it so I used it up this way.

I got a blue minke with dots for the back but I goofed there too since I bought the yardage with the measurements of the top without the borders so now I have to get the final measurements and lay out the minke and figure out what else I have to get to add to what I have in order to actually have a full back. Math with stretch considerations. *Sigh*

My second WIP is the continuation of all those HSTs. I am piecing 16 HSTs into a patch that finishes at eight inches. I will be sashing them with squares that will finish at two inches. In order to have enough patches to finish two twin quilts I ended up needing 140 patches. I haven't actually counted what I have but my rough count says I have 84 done so if I am right I need 56 more. Some are organized but not yet sewn together and if that rough count is accurate then I have 32 more to organize and there are 24 organized on the tray. We'll see if my count is accurate later.

After I have all the patches sewn together I will sort and organize and figure out how I want the sashing to go. I can't remember if the finish has borders or not. We'll see later.

My third WIP is ME! A couple of weeks ago my husband encouraged me to take my first learn to Longarm course. I learned to panto and quilted a crib sized Yellow Brick Road quilt. I was so happy with the finish and have been slowly hand stitching the binding on. I haven't rushed at it or even focused that hard on it but just enjoying the process. The baby isn't due till May so I'm not worried.

I wrote this post yesterday so that I could get it up early because I am taking my second Longarm course today where I will learn to Freehand with the Longarm. I am so excited! Where I used to think that I must just be a topper, I found that I loved the process of longarming while I never enjoyed the quilting process on my domestic machine.

More than that, my incredible husband has encouraged me to take another course too. Judi Madsen of Green Fairy Quilts is coming here to teach three two-day quilt retreats. I dithered too long to get into the first two but within moments of finding out that she had been convinced to add a third I was on the phone to my Mother-in-Law who is going to drive up and stay to help with the kids so that I can take this course. As soon as I hung up with her I called and got registered into the retreat. SO excited! That will be April 14/15 so I will have to try to remember my camera so I have pictures to post even though I have no doubt that Judi will post about it too.

Hopefully I will remember my camera tomorrow too so that I can post about it. I forgot it last time so I didn't have photo evidence of my first class

Make It Monday - Cheesy Chicken Noodle Casserole

Last week, early on Sunday I got a lovely Crockpot Pot Roast going early in the morning. It was Teacher's Convention weekend so with the kids home for four days, I knew I wasn't going to get a whole lot of quilting done. I don't know about anyone else's kids but as soon as I sit down to quilt my kids are in and out of my room every two minutes with questions, stories, requests, you name it and with that many interruptions, I get very little done.

Instead I took the time to make sure that lots of prep work was done for the week as well as taking the chance to do a good amount of scrubbing through the house so that when they went back to school on Monday, there was very little left for me to do and I had lots of time to quilt without interruptions!

In between cleaning bathrooms and floors, dusting, etc., I got this prepped. I did the make ahead version where I did steps 1 and 2 and got all that in the fridge Sunday by lunch. As usual, I skipped the salt and pepper since we don't need the salt and the kids don't like pepper. I also didn't bother stirring the chicken into the sauce.

Then first thing Monday morning, while finishing making lunches and getting the kids fed breakfast I got water boiling and a bag of egg noodles done. By the time the kids were fed and dressed I had all of the components ready to go. I put a quarter of the sauce on the bottom of the crock, then crumbled a quarter of the chicken over the sauce and spread a third of the noodles over top. I repeated, finishing with the chicken/sauce combo. I then just sprinkled the cheese and crumbs over top, skipping the butter and got it turned on. 
Before we left for school I had it all put together along with beds made, tidy up all done, kids fed, lunches made, all of it! When I got home from walking the kids to school I was able to type up last weeks post and then spend the rest of the day quilting. That's a big win for me. Yay!!


Ingredients
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 lb ground chicken
2 onions, finely chopped
4 stalks celery, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp paprika
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 10 oz can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 10 oz can condensed chicken broth, undiluted
8 oz cream cheese, cut into 2-inch cubes and softened
1 12 oz package egg noodles cooked and drained
1 cup bread crumbs
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
 2 Tbsp butter melted

Preparation
1. In a skillet, heal oil over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook, breaking up with a spoon, until meat is no longer pink. Drain off liquid and set chicken aside.

2. Reduce heat to medium. Add onions and celery and cook until softened. Add garlic, paprika, mustard, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Blend in soup and chicken broth. Add cream cheese, stirring, until cheese is melted, Stir in reserved chicken.

3. To assemble casserole: Spoon 1 cup chicken mixture in bottom of prepared stoneware. Add a layer of noodles. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of sauce.

4. To make Topping: In a bowl, toss bread crumbs with butter. Add cheese and spread over casserole.

5. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or on HIGH for 4 hours, until hot and bubbling.

MAKE AHEAD:
This dish can be partially prepared the night before it is cooked. Complete Steps 1 and 2, chilling cooked meat and sauce separately. Refrigerate overnight. Shred cheese, cover and refrigerate. The next morning, cook noodles and continue as directed in Steps 3, 4 and 5.

Make It Monday - Crockpot Pot Roast

A Make It Monday that sounds like a lot more work than it really is but is a hearty "Meat and Potatoes" kind of meal.

For the night before, it took me about 5 minutes to get the roast in the bag with the marinade. Any time someone opened the fridge, they turned the bag over. Easy!

I happened to be up early the next morning (I often am) and at 7:00 I grabbed a pan and started the browning of the roast. While it worked I got all the vegetables in the pot. When the browning was done, I dumped all the liquid in the pot and five minutes later, into the crock it went. I actually did this on a Sunday so I could post today but I have done it on a weekday and am able to get this done and also get my children fed breakfast and lunches made, etc and get them off to school with no trouble. Even easier if I have the lunches mostly made. Morning of work takes me 15-20 minutes.

Just before 5:00 I started pulling everything out of the crock and by 5:30 had everything on the table and we were sitting down for a tasty easy meal. While the gravy was simmering I was actually making the children's lunches for the next day.

On a school day, this recipe gives me so much time to quilt during the day while having a good home cooked meal at the end. This weekend happened to be Teacher's Convention and the third week in a row that the kids had a short school week. Also, cold as you know what. Today is another Green Dot Day and the whole weekend would have been had they been in school so I couldn't send them out to play to burn off some energy.

I don't know about anyone else with kids but mine can't seem to be home for the day without interrupting whatever I am doing every two minutes for something, whether a snack, booboo, argument, whatever so I find it very distracting to my quilting. Taking this in mind, I got this all in the crock and scrubbed the house so that today, I got the kids off to school this morning with a completely cleaned house and supper for today was in the crock before they left. I'll post next week how that worked because I now have the rest of the school day to quilt, guilt free!

I forgot to take a picture at the end but honestly, it didn't look much different except the vegetables all looked a little brown from cooking in the beef broth. Everything was so soft and tender and everyone loved it and ate it up with very little complaint. The kids tried an onion but didn't like them but other than that everyone was happy!


Ingredients
1 3lb Roast boneless Beef Chuck - trimmed and cut in half
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 large cloves garlic - minced
1 cup beef stock (preferably homemade) or low sodium broth or consommé
1 Tbsp cracked black pepper
3 Tbsp sun dried tomato paste or regular tomato paste
2 medium onions quartered (about 3/4 pound)
1 16 oz package carrots - cut into 2 inch pieces)
16 small red potatoes halved (about 2 pounds)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 Tbsp all purpose flour
3 Tbsp water

Preparation
Night before:
Combine roast, soy sauce and garlic in a large Ziploc plastic bag; seal bag and marinate in refrigerator at least 8 hours, turning bag occasionally.

Morning of:
Remove roast from bag, reserving marinade. Sprinkle roast with pepper, gently pressing pepper into roast. Combine reserved marinade, broth and tomato paste; stir well and set aside.

Place onion, carrot and potato in a 6 quart crockpot; toss gently.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add roast, browning well on all sides. Place roast over vegetables in cooker. Pour tomato paste mixture into pan, scraping to loosen browned bits. Pour tomato paste mixture over roast and vegetables. Cover and cook on low for 10 hours or until roast is tender.

Place roast and vegetable on a serving platter; keep warm. Pour cooking liquid from cooker into a pot. Combine flour and water in a bowl with a whisk until well blended. Add flour mixture to cooking liquid and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered for 15 minutes until slightly thick, stirring frequently. Serve gravy with roast and vegetables.

Makes 6 to 8 servings.

WIP Wednesday

Once again it has been a busy week for me. I managed to link up last week so once again I am going to try to link this up with Lee at Freshly Pieced and her WIP Wednesday post.

The "biggest" thing that I have been working on is a baby quilt for my "Sister In Law's" baby that is due in May or so. I say "SIL" because it is my husband's stepbrother's significant other. "SIL" is close enough. "Biggest" because it is the priority and has gotten the most time but isn't actually the largest.

A couple of weeks ago I did up this top in one Saturday. I have never managed to do this before with children around but I guess I am getting faster or the kids are getting a bit more self sufficient or whatever. Anyway, she is expecting a girl so I did up this quick "Yellow Brick Road" pattern with girl fabric that I had actually originally gotten for Brianna but never got made. She's six now and doesn't really need a crib quilt anymore and I needed a top quick so "SIL" is getting it. Now, because the fabric is pushing seven years old I couldn't tell you what it is but I liked it when I bought it! I backed it with the dotty pink minke and was talked into a poly batting by my LQS.

I really like how soft the whole thing turned out. I may be convinced to use poly batting for baby quilts from now on. We'll see. There just isn't the stiffness that a new cotton batting gives which is great for a longer term quilt or a bed quilt but I kind of like that the baby quilt is soft right away. I like that better for a baby.

I also took my very first Learn to Longarm class so this quilt was done with a stipple Panto by ME on a Longarm. Now, I have to admit that I will never again use a panto to stipple a quilt. Not because it was hard or turned out badly or anything, just that it should be easy enough to stipple free hand once I do the freehand classes. But I did learn how to load it on the machine, run the machine, the whole works. I can now do any panto on any quilt so it was a win.

It is still a WIP to me because I now have to buy something to bind it in and get that part done but I like binding so that's okay. I'll post a Finish It Up Friday post when I get it all done.

I have also been working some more on my HSTs for the two twin quilts from last week but didn't bother with pictures for that one.

My third WIP is my Storm At Sea Quilt. This one is eventually for my sister. This is another one that doesn't have an exact pattern for it. I liked the SAS pattern and made all the blocks with Foundation Piecing. This one is another that is about two years in the making. I now have it all put together and the papers all off the back. I want to put some borders on it but am having to figure it out as I go. I don't know what I want to do, just that I want borders. I am thinking a small red and then bigger blue. But a pieced blue? Piano keys? I don't know. I'll bind in red too.

I love the red heart in the middle. I love the optical illusion of the waves. This one was on my Bucket List and even though I won't be keeping it, still love that I made it.  
 
 
 
 
 

 

Make It Monday - Baked Beef Pasta Casserole

So, I have to assume that if you are here then, like me, you love to quilt. Thing is, life sometimes gets in the way of our quilting. One of the "life things" that gets in the way of my quilting every single day is feeding the seemingly bottomless pits I call my family.

I love my family and want to feed them good, healthy, tasty food that they all want to just gobble up with zero complaints (I said I want this, not that I actually expect to get ALL of that every day but I try). You know what else? I want lots of time to quilt too. These two wants can be in direct opposition without a bit of fairly easy planning and a deep freezer - the appliance this time, not our weather since I woke up to -35C out this morning. Yes, green dot day again.

I am going to try "Make It Monday" posts to combat this issue. So, if I post a recipe here, I have figured out some way for that recipe to make it easier for me to quilt with peace of mind.

This week I went with something simple but, being new at this, forgot to take a picture before I served up some of it. My son wanted to know just why I was taking pictures of supper.

Baked Beef Pasta Casserole

1 lb lean ground beef
1 lb whole grain rotini pasta, cooked and drained
1 small onion, diced
2 small cans tomato paste
2 small cans tomato sauce
1 tbsp. instant beef bouillon
2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded

Preheat oven to 350C. sauté ground beef and onion in large saucepan, stirring occasionally until beef is no longer pink.

Add tomato paste, tomato sauce and beef bouillon. Cook, stirring occasionally for 10 to 15 minutes or until flavours are blended.

Layer ingredients as follows in an ungreased 9x13" baking dish: 1/2 pasta, 1/2 sauce and 1/2 cheese. Repeat layers and cover. Bake for 45 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted.


So, how does this help me quilt? Well, a few ways.

One thing, I could do up all of the work first thing in the morning while I am doing other things. So, while my children are eating breakfast I could be also getting the water boiling on the pasta and getting the meat and onion cooked, all while multi-tasking the children out the door. Even if I don't multi-task very well, I can still get all of this complete after I get home from dropping the kids off at school, get everything in the casserole dish and in the fridge and no more thoughts of dinner until I start getting ready to go get the kids. I can turn on the oven at 3:00, pop the casserole in and by the time we are back and ready to eat it, everything is ready to go.

Another thing that I could do, is double, triple or quadruple the recipe. For the most part, this adds very little time. Cooking three or four pounds of beef doesn't take much more time than cooking one pound does but, cooking one pound of beef on four different days takes much more time. Cleaning one slightly larger pan doesn't take much longer than cleaning one smaller pan and so on for each step.

For preparation, I cook everything like the original but then let everything cool and then instead of layering the ingredients I just mix it all together, including about 2/3ish of the mozza. I then put about 1.5 pounds or so into a medium sized freezer Ziploc. I remove all of the air and freeze it flat. This amount is good for my two children with very little left over when my husband is out of town. If I am using the frozen food when more people are there I just pull out more bags and everything else is the same.

On a day I am using my homemade convenience food, all I have to do is pull out a freezer bag in the morning, I peel the bag off immediately and put the "puck" into a bowl to thaw. Later in the day I can finish thawing in the microwave, put the pasta mixture into a small casserole, sprinkle with a bit of cheese, place into oven like original and I have a home cooked meal for the kids with the effort of convenience food! Love it. More quilting time for me!

All right, still figuring out this blogging thing so Make It Monday went up on Tuesday. Hopefully I get better at this and next weeks actually goes up on Monday!

WIP Wednesday

Well, I've decided to get going with this blog and jump in with WIP Wednesday. I'm going to try to link this up with Lee at Freshly Pieced

It's been a long winter here. As far north as we are, winters here kind of suck. It's cold, very snowy and seems to last forever. There's so much of it that it has to be really bad for school to cancel due to winter weather. The schools have "Green Dot Days" where they attach green dots to all the doors and the kids are to come straight in and all of the recesses are indoors. The schools do this when the temperature and wind chill combine to -23C or colder.

We've had ALOT of "Green Dot Days" this year. I haven't counted but it feels like half of our school days have been Dot Days. It sucks for everyone. The kids get cabin fever, it's hard on the teachers and it's hard when the kids come home to keep them entertained and not arguing.

Add to that piles of snow and I am so ready for spring. We get an average of 132cm of snow per winter and this year we are WELL above the yearly average. Right is a picture from our second floor. It's hard to see but some of the piles are four and five feet tall. Blech. Also, this is the middle of the morning so this is as bright as it got today. More snow expected every day this week.

So, because of all this, quilting is my happy place. Great pictures are hard to get with our short, grey days but I'll do the best I can. 


My dearest, most wonderful husband gave me gift certificates to my LQS for Christmas from himself and our children. Is that not the best husband ever? I sure think so. The bright pretty colours of my fabric are the second prettiest thing in my day. Once in a while Mother Nature gives us a blue sky. The rest of the time I count first on my wonderful family to make me smile. Quilting comes second but what could be better than my family making me feel so loved?



I haven't used all my gift certificates yet but I did get a bunch of twenty inch cuts of coloured fabrics. And by a bunch, I mean 68! I also got a ton of white on white. Since then I have made almost 3,000 HSTs. Each HST finishes at two inches. I know, I am a crazy lady. When everything is said and done, I will end up with two twin sized quilts. That's my current major WIP.



I am taking the HSTs that I made, combining them into patches using 16 HSTs each using the ideas from Camille Roskelley as well as a few more that weren't on her list. I will then sash them with two inch squares organized I don't know how yet. The final design isn't there yet. It's kind of in my head and still a work in progress.

 











I have also been working on the "Don't Look Now" applique quilt "Little Monsters". Only I changed it up a bit and have been doing it as much as possible with freezer paper hand applique. Yeah, still a crazy lady.








My LQS laughingly and lovingly refers to me as the crazy quilt lady because of my love of BIG and complicated quilts. That's okay. There are worse things to be crazy about than quilts.

Now that I have posted and edited a ton of times, hopefully I have an easier time with my next post. Things don't seem to post live the way they look as I'm typing it up. Oh well, with practice I assume this will get easier and better.

Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden

I am rather proud of myself for finishing this one. Dear husband called it the Millenium Project but I finished it in ever so slightly over two years. He wasn't entirely convinced I would finish it. In all honesty, I wasn't always certain either! I have now been talked into entering it if I can find a show to enter it into this summer. I will be giving it to my brother and his wife for Christmas and won't ask for it back to enter it somewhere after it has been gifted. I was looking for a pattern that suited them and I liked this one because they live on 25 acres just outside of Calgary and have a two acre garden. I said to my husband at one point that we should just keep it for ourselves and he said no, that I had started it with them in mind and they should get it and I can make another quilt for us. He's right.

The "story" behind the quilt:

I tend to like larger, more complicated quilts. Combine this with a husband that has to travel alot for work and and eight year old son and a five year old daughter and I don't get all that many finishes.

BUT! When I do, they sure are a doozy! And, at least to me, this one sure is.

In April of 2011 I watched a YouTube video of how to EPP by hand. After that I did up a "map" of this GFG with hexie graph paper and pencil crayons. From there I did the counting and math to figure out fabric requirements. I bought the fabric, brought it home and washed and ironed it and then cut it all into 2.5" squares. Then I printed off hexie templates onto card stock and cut them out. On May 23, 2011 I basted the first piece of fabric onto one of those hexies.

From then on, these flowers went to preschool waits, Tae Kwon Do, swimming lessons, Jamaica and probably other places I can't think of. They saw any number of evening shows and numerous winter storms (we get that alot in Edmonton). But, I finished.

I am calling this one "Not Your Grandmother's Flower Garden" because I broke so many of the "rules" of a GFG but I love it. There are almost 5,000 1" hexies. Final measurement 126" x 102" and it was sent to the long armer because there was no way I was going to be able to quilt that sucker on my machine. It has Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting and a black with white polka dot minke back. I wasn't considering binding either that long ago so it ended up with a black with small white dots binding. It was machine sewn to the back and hand stitched to the front. The final stitch went into the label on May 29, 2013.

 

 

 

Now I am at loose ends as to where to go from here!

Hexie Details:

1755 Black hexies - 275" of fabric

538 Bright Yellow - 85"
264 Light yellow - 42.5"
538 Bright Blue - 85"
264 Light Blue - 42.5"
536 Bright Pink - 85"
264 Light Pink - 42.5"
538 Bright Green - 85"
264 Light Green - 42.5"

I almost always buy a little bit extra to allow for shrinkage, mistakes, etc. When I was about 75% done, I realized that I had to sew an extra row of hexies on the top and bottom because I wanted the binding to finish right on a seam and I hadn't sewn a hexie above that seam to fill the binding and have enough to really attach to so these numbers are slightly off but this is what I purchased. This does not account for binding, backing or batting.

Also, it does indeed make a VERY heavy quilt. I haven't gotten around to weighing it but have been thinking I should. It is heavy enough that while my mother-in-law is pushing me to enter it SOMEWHERE before I give it to my brother for Christmas, I don't have alot of faith in the sleeve supporting the weight of it without damaging the minke back. Between my LQS and the biannual quilt show I went to this weekend, I now think it will be okay with a split sleeve.

When I originally started this, I thought it would be done in time to give for Christmas 2011. I was a long way off on my timing but just kept plugging away at it. Much of the time I worked on it I either didn't want to be in front of my machine or simply couldn't be. We also bought a house near the end of January last year and so had to list the house we were in. We were bursting at the seams and keeping a house "ShowHome Ready" with a seven year old, four year old and, once again, a husband out of town meant that I simply could not get out the mess of machine piecing while this could be taken out and put away in moments. Or sitting pool side in Jamaica, enjoying the sun - we escaped -40 for most of that trip. Or just shy of two hours twice a week for Tae Kwon Do, or, or, or. I've been working on a queen sized foundation pieced storm at sea for 18 months when I could get to the machine.

 Something I loved about this was that I could take it anywhere and even if I only had five or ten minutes then I could easily accomplish at least a little with very little tools. Those little five - ten minute quilting breaks plus "watching" Grey's or whatever else all added together made this quilt.

I had to go outside and do the pictures where and how I did because I didn't have anywhere else big enough where I could also get far enough away to get the whole quilt in one shot. I am standing on a chair on my upper deck to get the shot of the whole quilt so the camera is about 15 feet above the quilt and back about six to eight feet. I'm not even keeping this quilt. It is a Christmas gift for my brother and his wife and they don't have a clue.

 

 

Thank you so much for your interest. I don't really have anyone to share with that actually understands. I can't even join the guild here because it meets on Wednesday nights and that is my husband's Army Artillery reserve night but I still love him anyway! :)

 

In other news, my dear husband is no longer a sergant. A little over a week ago he got promoted to Warrant Officer. Yay husband! Biggest congratulations to the most wonderful partner I could ever ask for in sharing my life with me.

Tara